Balancing wine bottle holders of the general type of the present invention are known having been first taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,496,124, which issued in 1985, and having been illustrated in various design patents: D432,872; D433,632; D456,220; D350,039; and D488,358. A typical prior art wine bottle holder is illustrated in prior art FIGS. 1-4. Most of these prior art holder including the illustrated holder 10 generally comprise (i) an elongated body 15 that extends upwardly at an acute angle 20 relative to a base surface 25 and (ii) an opening 30 provided in the body into which a neck of a wine bottle can be received. The area of the base surface 35 is generally small relative to the length of the body. The center of gravity of each of these holders is located horizontally to the left or right of the base surface, and accordingly, an empty holder topples over when one tries to stand the holder on its base on a substantially horizontal surface. However, when a neck of a bottle of wine is placed appropriately in the opening with the bottle extending in a horizontal direction opposite the direction in which the body is leaning, the center of gravity of the two combined is moved to be vertically aligned with the midpoint of the base. Accordingly, the combination is balanced and the holder remains upright supported only on its base surface with the bottle extending outwardly from the opening. For sake of clarity, the wine bottle is omitted in FIG. 1 but it is to be understood that the wine bottle would be necessary for the holder to maintain an upright stance as shown in FIG. 1.
The prior art teaches the balancing holder can be made of any suitable rigid material such as wood or plastic. Many of the prior art versions of the holder, such as those illustrated in FIGS. 1-4, are generally rectangular in cross section and having a rectangular base surface 35, a top surface 40 and front and rear face surfaces 45 & 50 with parallelogram shaped side surfaces 55 & 60. Although as evidenced by the referenced prior art, other designs are possible as well.
The opening 30 is typically of a diameter suitable for the neck of most wine bottles to be received therein and therethrough allowing for reasonable variation as is typical with wine bottles containing wines from different vineyards. In all prior art references, the opening is substantially annular. In some prior art holders, the opening 30 extends inwardly perpendicularly with the front and rear face surfaces 45 & 50 of the body 15 and is substantially circular in shape on either of the front and rear face surfaces. In yet other variations, such as illustrated in the prior art figures, the angle that the opening extends inwardly from the front or rear face surfaces is parallel to base surface 35 thereby forming an oval shape on the front and rear face surfaces. In yet other variations of the prior art holders, the opening may extending through the body at angles intermediate of perpendicular to the front face and parallel to the base surface. However, in all prior art holders wherein the opening extends all the way through the body, the shape of the opening on the front face surface 45 is substantially the same as the shape of the opening formed on the rear face surface 50.
While these bottle holders are effective in supporting many designs of bottles, in many instances it can be difficult for the user of a prior art holder to find the proper location of the bottle in the opening to create a balanced combination. Furthermore, there are some bottle designs that will not hold the bottle in the balanced position as the slope of the bottle coupled with the arcuate sections of the opening 30 cause the bottle to slide outwardly of the balance location(s), and accordingly, make the combination unstable and unable to be balanced.